Staff Writer Abyan Memon looks into the series of events that have resulted in a decline in NBA viewership.
The 2024-25 NBA Season
We are just two months into the 2024-25 NBA campaign, and it is already building a case to be remembered as a historic season. To recap quickly: opening week saw history made as Lebron and Bronny James became the first father-son duo to share an NBA court.
Then on the same night, the Boston Celtics came close to blowing a four-year-old record out of the water but fell short, tying the record for the most 3-pointers made by a team in a game.
A month later, James Harden passed Ray Allen on the all-time three-pointers list, and the undefeated Cleveland Cavaliers put their historic 15-0 record on the line against the reigning champions, the Boston Celtics.
December saw Nikola Jokić pass Magic Johnson on the all-time triple-doubles list, Giannis Antetokounmpo win the NBA Cup MVP with a triple-double performance in the championship game, Lebron James top the leaderboard for the most NBA minutes ever played, and Klay Thompson pass Reggie Miller on the all-time three-pointers list.
To top it all off, the Phoenix Suns and the Utah Jazz tied the record for the combined most 3-pointers in a game, and then the Golden State Warriors and the Dallas Mavericks broke that record 2 nights later.
The Numbers
Despite teams shooting lights out from behind the arc, players making moves on the all-time lists, and history unfolding across the league, the season has seen a drop in viewership. Let’s run through some numbers and paint the picture.
OutKick reported a 42% drop in ratings for the opening night doubleheader compared to the previous season. Yahoo! Sports highlighted a similar trend, reporting a 28% decrease in ratings one month into the season.
Front Office Sports and Sports Media Watch reported further evidence: a 10% drop in NBA Cup group play ratings and a 19% decline in overall viewership through early December.
Other Leagues
How are other basketball leagues faring? The WNBA season, which runs through the summer, saw an incredible 170% increase in viewership numbers, but those numbers are of course heavily skewed by Caitlin Clark’s truly impressive impact on women’s basketball.
College basketball, both men’s and women’s, has also seen an increase in viewership. So what is it about the NBA that is pushing viewers away?
Baseball & Elections
During the opening weeks of the NBA season, basketball games were overshadowed by more significant events. The MLB World Series saw the reignition of baseball’s most fierce rivalry. At the same time, the US elections were ramping up, and the stories surrounding them dominated November.
Stoppage, Officiating & Lack of Defense
A criticism that has been brought forward for years now is the decline in defensive intensity. The NBA has gone through rule changes over the years that limit physicality and restrict defenders from impeding offensive players.
The officials do not hold back when it comes to enforcing these rules. Complaints about referees are nothing new, but as the officials have more reasons to make calls, fans have more reasons to complain—especially when crucial fouls are called in crunch time, leading to games decided off free throws rather than possible game winners.
Of course, if players are given the opportunity to exploit a rule and turn the game in their favour, they will take it. The league has tried to discourage players from flopping by implementing the flopping foul this season, but players still foul-bait in other ways.
Ultimately, the combination of defensive restrictions, excessive foul calls, and persistent foul-baiting contributes to one major viewing problem: stoppage. Basketball games are frequently interrupted by foul calls, timeouts, and play reviews. It feels like almost half of the game is spent watching free throws and commercials.
Corporate Greed
Every year the league finds new ways to incorporate commercials into every corner of the game and then carves out new corners to make space for more advertising. This leads to viewing experiences where you walk away from a game with the same five commercials playing in your head.
It has become so forced that you will hear a commentator announce a timeout and follow it up with, “…and we’ll cut right to commercial break, folks” in the same breath. Sometimes, the stream will cut to commercials during an injury stoppage, just to cut back halfway through the first commercial. Worst of all, they make it clear how little they care about your viewing experience by going ‘double box’ screen and playing a commercial while the ball is still in play.
Packing games with commercials at every interval is not the only form of corporate greed that is driving viewers away. NBA games on streaming platforms were introduced to make games more accessible, but they have had the complete opposite effect.
Broadcasting rights have become so fragmented and shared across a multitude of platforms, that fans must piece together the perfect, most affordable combination of subscriptions to access every game they want to watch. Even once you figure out the most affordable combination, it’s not even affordable due to streaming companies hiking up prices.
Injuries & Load Management
Another criticism the league has faced recently revolves around player load management. The league has tried addressing this by introducing policies like banning the resting of players on nationally televised games and implementing a minimum games-played requirement for awards eligibility.
However, the challenge with load management lies in its purpose to counter injuries, which also contributes to viewership decline. For example, the Philadelphia 76ers had a huge off-season, adding an All-Star veteran and drafting a standout rookie. However, it feels like their season is yet to begin as we have not yet seen them play a week of basketball together with all their major pieces off the injury report.
It is difficult to point to one reason for the NBA’s viewership decline, and that is because there is no one reason. It is a storm fueled by various aspects of the league, one that has been brewing for a while and has erupted this season.
